Shuttlecock XXII: Summer of Laz

[prbiker15]

I still prefer Innocence to Experience (Little Things is the best song of this era, though).
However, both albums are fantastic late-career efforts.

 

[Mack_Again]

However, both albums are fantastic late-career efforts.

fantastic is bit of a hyperbole, don't you think?

 

[the tourist]

No. They are.

 

[kabigon]

I don't mind that it's the first time in years we(/they?) don't know what their plans are for the years ahead. Time for a clean break from this era. It always felt like they were trying to catch up to themselves.

 

[the tourist]

I’d be happy with nothing “new” but just releases from the vault. At least for the next handful of years. There’s gotta be a bunch of unreleased stuff from 1988-2005 that they could polish up (and by polish up, I mean EQ and compress and generally mix and master, not re-record). Even if it’s just material on bonus discs of super deluxe versions of Rattle & Hum, Zooropa, Pop, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

Whenever they do decide to write something new, I hope it’s more contemplative in nature like Love Is All We Have Left.

 

[Axver]

Innocence is comfortably their worst album for mine, and it’s not close. Experience is very flawed but it’s got a handful of pretty great songs so it’s definitely a step up.

For a while I struggled to have an opinion on whether SOI or SOE is the better album, but SOE is falling off for me even more than SOI did. I will come in to bat for Cedarwood Road and The Troubles as legitimately good U2 songs, without need for qualification. I can't say that for anything on SOE.

I'm relieved the tour is over. Both the new album and the quasi-musical concept of the tour left me completely cold. Even covering just five shows at the end of the European leg was tedious.

All I hope is that whatever the band do next it's not more of the same.

 

[namkcuR]

Long post incoming...

I've been reflecting as well on this era as it's drawn to its close over the last couple weeks. It's an era for the band that really started about five years ago right now, when Ordinary Love dropped in November 2013. That led to its Golden Globe win and Oscar nomination, and the debut of Invisible on Super Bowl Sunday 2014 and a live performance on the premiere of Fallon's Tonight Show a couple of weeks later. After this period, which you might call The Great False Start Of 2014, there was radio silence for six months, until SOI dropped in September. This was followed by the I+E tour in 2015, a break in 2016, the JT30 tour and release of SOE in 2017, and the E+I tour this year.

To start with, it seems like the era that immediately preceded this one - 2007-2012 - was not a happy one for the band. A Guardian article shortly after SOI came out contained this passage:

Despite the staggering success of the 360° tour, the past few years have found U2 looking unusually vulnerable. The tour’s final leg and U2’s Glastonbury debut were postponed by a year when Bono incurred a serious back injury. Their last album, 2009’s*No Line on the Horizon, sold disappointingly and lacked hit singles.

“It was conceived as a more fun, off-the-cuff type of work but we realised towards the end that that doesn’t exist for us,” Edge says ruefully. “There’s no small album from us.”
“It wasn’t fun,” Mullen says of the album he refers to as No Craic on the Horizon. “It was pretty fucking miserable. It turns out that we’re not as good as we thought we were and things got in the way.”

It seems obvious now that they don't think highly of NLOTH, and that they had maybe lost their way in terms of songwriting. There is an EP's worth of great material on NLOTH imo(title track, MOS, Fez, White As Snow, Cedars) but the rest of the album feels thin in terms of substance - there is no unifying theme throughout the record, and some of the songs sound very 'constructed'. I loved it at first, but it has not aged well for me.

There's also this - if you look at the 2000-2006 era, they produced 39 original songs by my count, when count the MDH tracks, ATYCLB, ATYCLB b-sides, ES/Hands, HTDAAB, HTDAAB b-sides, Unreleased & Rare 'new' tracks, Mercy, and WITS.

You can divide their entire career into similar 3-6 year slices and see the productivity(all the song counts are mine), like so:

1979-1982(Boy, October) 28
1983-1985(War, UF) 28
1986-1990(JT, R&H) 31
1991-1994(AB, Zooropa) 26
1995-1999(Passengers, Pop) 32
2000-2006(ATYCLB, HTDAAB) 39

In this SOI/SOE era that's ending now, it's 29 songs.

But in the 2007-2012 era? NLOTH has 11 tracks, plus Winter and maybe Soon, that's 13. If you add Boy Falls From The Sky, that's 14. That's it. You could argue for including North Star or Stingray(not Glastonbury because that became Volcano/AS), but those were live-only.

2007-2012 was also the era of the re-issues - the ZooTV DVD in Fall 2006, the Popmart DVD and Joshua Tree 20th in 2007, Boy/October/War/UABRS(EP and DVD) in 2008, UF 25th in 2009, and AB 20th(plus Zooropa) in 2011. So if you really wanted to stretch it, you could pad the song total by adding in all those retroactively finished b-sides(Wave Of Sorrow, Rise Up, Disappearing Act, Blow Your House Down, etc) - there are maybe 12 in total - but I'm not even sure that would be right seeing as those songs all originated in previous eras.

The (admittedly long-winded) point I'm making here is that 2007-2012 was, by a significant margin, the least creatively fertile/productive period of the band's career. It produced only 14 new songs, and three of those were the NLOTH middle 3 and another - Soon - was more a song fragment than a full song.

So I think that they were in a place, after the success of ATYCLB/HTDAAB, where they didn't really know what they wanted to be or what they wanted to say going forward, and I think that's reflected not only in the relative struggle of the songwriting, but also in the 360 tour, where they had this enormous stage and never seemed sure of what to do with it.

The same article I referenced before contains this passage:

The Danger Mouse sessions (finished with extra producers including Paul Epworth) became*Songs of Innocence*when Jimmy Iovine, the former record mogul who is currently working for Apple, told Bono: “The person you need to be to make this album, he’s a long way from where you live.”

“He threw down the gauntlet,” says Bono. “Are you ready to go there? Are you ready to ask yourself the hard questions? And I asked myself the hard questions about why I wanted to be in the band in the first place. You know, I didn’t go to a shrink. I should. I went there. And there’s some surprising outcomes.”

Iovine gets vilified here sometimes because of the perception that the band always starts second-guessing themselves after talking to him, but I think he was on the money here. When you're as rich as they are, and you're rubbing elbows with all of these famous people and living that life, and your egos are as big as theirs are, and in Bono's case investing so much time and energy into his causes, I imagine it can be easy to become creatively apathetic and more difficult to really dig deep as a songwriter and lay yourself bare. But I think they were up to the challenge.

You can tell that Bono really wanted to say something real on these albums, after the unfocused 2007-2012 era and even after the platitude/slogan-heavy 2000-2006 era. Musically, he straight up said he wanted to write songs that could be played on an acoustic guitar, i.e. songs that could stand on their own without any studio trickery, without any bells and whistles. I think he(and the band) was aware that stuff like Boots and Stand Up Comedy sounded so manufactured and kind of soulless, and didn't want to repeat that. So I feel like he was sort of trying to find himself as a songwriter again on these albums, and I think he succeeded, and as a result the band succeeded.

There's just a lot of really strong songs on these albums.

The Troubles and Little Things are epic slow-build ballads that showcase how good this band can still be.

Raised By Wolves and Cedarwood Road are perhaps the best rock songs they've produced since Pop.

Summer Of Love, with its infectious guitar riff and incredible groove, is addictive.

Landlady is a beautiful love song.

Iris is a beautiful poem about a man who still misses his mother all these decades later.

Sleep Like A Baby Tonight is at once haunting and beautiful, one of their prettiest melodies in years.

Love Is Bigger deftly balances its over-the-top chorus with its quietly-emotional verses to create an affecting anthem.

Red Flag Day is a blast of energy.

This Is Where You Can Reach Us Now is one of the freshest/most unique sounding things Edge has done in a while - the opposite of Edge-on-autopilot.

Lights Of Home is a stirring account of a near-death experience.

Crystal Ballroom is both super emotive and super catchy, atmospheric and poppy. It should've been on the album proper and I still think it could've been their biggest single in a long time.

Invisible is a deceptively powerful piece about a kid going out on his own, determined to make his father finally see him.

Book Of Your Heart is another love song, gorgeous, powerfully performed, absolutely should've been on the album proper.

Even the poppy stuff is more good than bad. I mean, I don't much care for American Soul and Get Out Of Your Own Way any more than most of you do, but Best Thing has grown one me a lot.

I love California, such a huge, feel-good sing-along chorus. Just a warm, melodic, energetic pop song, featuring some great lyrics - "There's no end to grief/that's how I know/and how I need to know/that there is no end to love", "we come and go/those stolen days you don't give back/those stolen days are just enough".

Every Breaking Wave is unfairly maligned here, I think it's one of the best, most memorable melodies on either album.

And yes, I am in the minority in being a fan of The Miracle. Musically it stays with me, and lyrically there are a couple lines that I find genuinely moving - "Everything I've ever lost/now has been returned" succinctly states what finding music meant to a kid who had lost his mother and had a not-great relationship with his father. And I don't know how "All the stolen voices/will someday be returned" can't make you feel something. The song gets bashed but I think it's a really honest expression of how music changed his life when he was young.

I think these albums are more triumph than not. I can't think of a better way for a rich rock star to rediscover himself as a songwriter than to essentially make a multi-album exploration of himself; who he was all those years ago, and who he is now. These are songs about the loss of his mother, growing up amidst the terrorism of Ireland in those days, his rage as a young man, discovering music as his salvation, leaving his childhood home behind to try to to make it, his own mortality and brush with death, and the things he'd want to tell his wife and his children if he were gone. And then it all ends with 13, a plea to his kids and to himself to not let the darkness kill the light. I think it's a powerful way to end the whole thing, and it kind of makes Song For Someone unnecessary.

If Bono wasn't sure what he wanted to say in the previous era, he fixed that problem in this one. There's very little, if any, kneel/feel/soul type stuff here. These songs are saying something fucking real. And where NLOTH's lack of focus and/or a central theme was reflected in a live show with a huge stage they never knew what to do with, the focus it took to put two full albums out that explored the themes of innocence and experience, youth and mortality, is reflected in a live show where they knew exactly what to do with the I+E/E+I stage. I know we make fun of the "narrative" stuff, but I think they've made tremendous use of that wall/screen(ok, I didn't go to E+I, but it was great in I+E).

The more I think about it, the more I think this pair of albums is damn impressive for a band approaching its 40th year. It's not their top-tier work, but it's damn impressive, and I really think these albums represent, on the whole, their best songwriting since the 90s.

I don't know if this is it, but I know I'd feel ok if it was. More than ok. This feels like ideal subject matter to go out on. And that might be in the bands' heads too. Again, from that Guardian article, Larry talking about NLOTH, SOI, and finishing a career :

“The easiest thing would be a greatest hits tour,” says Mullen. “We could do that for years. I just wasn’t prepared to go down in flames on the last record. This is not the way to finish your career. Go out with something that you really believe in. There were questions like: can we do this? Is it possible for us?”

So I think it's safe to say they're at least thinking about it, about there being an end date. And, like I said, I think I'd be fine with that. This would be a satisfying way to go out. And frankly, I'm really not sure I want to see the band in 2035 performing, every night, whatever the 2035 equivalent of American Soul or Get Out Of Your Own Way is. I'm not sure they have it in them to make an album, ever, without having at least one or two songs like that, and I'm also not sure the good material surrounding those songs would be as good as the best material from these albums. Maybe it's just me, but there is a certain last-gasp-of-greatness quality about stuff like The Troubles, Little Things, Raised By Wolves, etc etc, and of the albums as a whole.

These just feel like the last albums of a career. Even if they keep touring for a while longer. Hell, the JT30 tour kind of felt like them trying on that outfit, seeing how they'd feel just touring the back catalogue.

Anyway, that's about all I've got to say. I guess I'll finish by saying, between the two, I'll take SOI. Those last five tracks are the best five-track run they've had maybe since Achtung, certainly since Pop.

Hope somebody read this.

 

[djerdap]

Thoughts from the Berlin gig...

It was a special show. The crowd was probably the best I've seen at a U2 concert so far - One was done mostly by the audience (and it was more of a spontaneous effort this time as opposed to the Innocence tour), the singing continued for Love is Bigger long after the song ended with the band being obviously moved by the audience, and "deeper cuts" like The Fly and Wild Horses got a big reaction.

It was a delight to witness two of my favourite songs - The Fly and Acrobat - at one show. I never thought I'd experience that. Dirty Day - even this castrated version - was one of the highlights, and it goes without saying that it sounded better in person, although it would have been so much better if the speech didn't continue on instead of the 2nd verse. But at least the guitar breakdown was there (it can always be worse), with "Horses over the hill" verse providing the much needed energy. Speaking of energy - Gloria was a blast and I cannot fathom why would All Because of You ever be considered as a proper rotational track.

Bono acknowledged they're filming this show and the cameras were all over the place. I did notice minor mistakes on a couple of songs and I wonder whether this will be edited. Acrobat in particular had certain hiccups (the "Don't believe what you hear!" intro wasn't in sync with Larry this time for instance), but Edge really got into it during the solo. It was tremendous to see this guy play his best work, and one could could tell he was enjoying his spotlight on songs like The Fly.

I could write a bit more about how the post-Acrobat part of the show drags and how it pretty much turns into a Bono speechfest with some songs thrown in, and how I couldn't get into those bubblegum anthems like Get Out or Love is Bigger even at gunpoint, but that would be missing the point. The 1st part of the show was one of my favourite U2 live experiences, the atmosphere was truly magnificent, and I wouldn't mind if this was my last U2 show ever. It would be ending on a highpoint, even if I dislike the last two records (but I will say - songs like The Blackout and Lights of Home really came to life live).

So we'll see how it goes with this band. At this point - if "the U2 project" does continue again in 4-5 years, I'm looking forward to some new live rarities, but if they suddenly pull out a late-career gem... nobody would be happier than this disgruntled trainspotter.

'Til next time - even if next time turns out to be a situation where "Is Bono OK?!" (or "Is Larry fine?") is actually a legitimate question.

 

[aviastar]

I really enjoyed this tour. The opening three song sequence was masterful stagecraft IMO. I really got into The Blackout after seeing it live. There were parts that drag a bit but I found that to be true with TJT2017 and I+E tours as well. I don’t expect 2 hours of all high...every concert I’ve ever been to ebbs and flows.

I LOVE that they didn’t back down on the no TJT songs. I think running a whole tour without playing Streets or WOWY - when most bands their age are ‘playing the hits’ really speaks volumes. They could have dropped BD and Vertigo too but that would have left casual fans with nothing. Maybe this is the U2 fan in me, but I went to hear the new stuff and not the hits...I don’t have the same attitude when I go see U2s contemporaries.

I got to see Acrobat, which was thrilling. Now if only they’d drag The Unforgettable Fire (song) out more often I’d be over the moon...but I have no complaints.

I thought SOI and SOE were impressive offerings, by no means masterpieces, but solid albums. If this is the last creative period of U2 I would say it was a really good one. You got to enjoy while it’s happening because it’s going to be quiet for a while.

 

[Hewson]

For a while I struggled to have an opinion on whether SOI or SOE is the better album, but SOE is falling off for me even more than SOI did. I will come in to bat for Cedarwood Road and The Troubles as legitimately good U2 songs, without need for qualification. I can't say that for anything on SOE.

.

Yeah, even though SOI has what may be my least favorite U2 song ever (SFS), it is a far superior album overall to SOE. 2nd half of it is very strong.

 

[lazarus]

It seems obvious now that they don't think highly of NLOTH, and that they had maybe lost their way in terms of songwriting. There is an EP's worth of great material on NLOTH imo(title track, MOS, Fez, White As Snow, Cedars) but the rest of the album feels thin in terms of substance - there is no unifying theme throughout the record, and some of the songs sound very 'constructed'. I loved it at first, but it has not aged well for me.

...

Iovine gets vilified here sometimes because of the perception that the band always starts second-guessing themselves after talking to him, but I think he was on the money here. When you're as rich as they are, and you're rubbing elbows with all of these famous people and living that life, and your egos are as big as theirs are, and in Bono's case investing so much time and energy into his causes, I imagine it can be easy to become creatively apathetic and more difficult to really dig deep as a songwriter and lay yourself bare. But I think they were up to the challenge.

...

The more I think about it, the more I think this pair of albums is damn impressive for a band approaching its 40th year. It's not their top-tier work, but it's damn impressive, and I really think these albums represent, on the whole, their best songwriting since the 90s.

I really appreciated this recap of the whole last 15+ years, and I think you did a great job illustrating the peaks and valleys of it. However, I think there's a major omission here, as opposed to something I strongly disagree with, and that's the recurring theme of compromise.

Regarding NLOTH, you said Edge claimed the band tried to make an off-the-cuff, fun album, but they still went to the lengths of setting up the recording studio in Fez and taking inspiration from the surroundings, inviting Eno and Lanois in as proper songwriting collaborators, the various group chants, etc. I don't feel like this album is any less conceived than the others. And while you're right that there are songs that feel constructed (or in my words, "frankensteined"), one shouldn't apply that to the whole album because it's really just SUC and Boots. I don't think it's fair to say that Bono attempting to write in character and tell some different stories from his own means that he lost his way. He was doing that on Zooropa and partially on Pop, and is still doing it on tracks like Sleep Like A Baby, Red Flag Day, and Summer of Love. And coming off a fairly direct rock album that was largely influenced by the death of Bono's father, I think it made sense for the band to start exploring away from home again.

No Line is a failure not because of the ideas or the band's approach, but because they didn't follow through with it. They didn't let Eno and Lanois finish to the end and brought in Lillywhite for a trio of songs that don't really fit the rest of the album, and seemed to keep some of the local musical influences at bay when they should have let them in a little more to give the album a more distinct sound. I think the material as is makes more than a great EP; it's marred by inconsistency but it's only a few substitutions away from something that could have been a much more substantial statement.

With the last two albums, yes, you're right that Iovine's advice was thematically sound, but once again the band changes production horses in mid-stream and compromises what might have been a better-sounding, less opportunistic recording. There's simply no excuse for spending that much time with a respected and innovative producer like Danger Mouse, only to largely abandon his work to remix or re-record material with flavor of the month producers like Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth. It was a desperate, unfortunate move, and the fact that most here (including yourself) seem to prefer the album's final run of tracks where DM's presence is more prominent bears that out.

As for SOE, again, I think the songwriting itself for the most part is good (though Get Out is just as "constructed" as the No Line songs you mentioned), but the whole rotating gallery of producers, and all the extra guitars and keyboards contributed by non-band members casts a pall over the whole thing for me. You may like the way it sounds, but it comes with a price, and as a longtime fan I'm not crazy about the band paying it with some of their integrity. When you have a guitarist as eclectic and talented as The Edge, you don't bring in all these ringers to add guitar parts. So while I've gone on record in saying this album has more standout tracks than any album since Pop (there's more of them, for one), I don't care for the track order (this has been a constant issue with the band post-2000), and I'm not sure it holds together as an album as well as it should. I think it has less of a personality than SOI, or even No Line despite the middle 3.

So I can't argue with the suggestion they've seemed more inspired and prolific in this stage of their careers, but they can't shake the second-guessing. It's evident in the number of producers, the Invisible fake-out and album delays, and the setlists of the e+i tour. Until the band opts to choose a single producer or producers and actually stick with them, I don't think they're going to legitimately achieve greatness again.

 

[namkcuR]

I really appreciated this recap of the whole last 15+ years, and I think you did a great job illustrating the peaks and valleys of it. However, I think there's a major omission here, as opposed to something I strongly disagree with, and that's the recurring theme of compromise.

First of all, appreciate the compliment.

Regrading the underlined, I wasn't trying to omit it. I guess I thought it was such an obvious thing with all of their 21st century work that it didn't even occur to me to mention it explicitly(a sad statement, I guess). But of course I agree. I mean, it's one of the reasons I said at the end that I'd be ok with these albums being their final work - because I don't think they have it in them to make an album without the American Souls and Get Of Your Own Ways anymore.

Regarding NLOTH, you said Edge claimed the band tried to make an off-the-cuff, fun album, but they still went to the lengths of setting up the recording studio in Fez and taking inspiration from the surroundings, inviting Eno and Lanois in as proper songwriting collaborators, the various group chants, etc. I don't feel like this album is any less conceived than the others.

I mean, those are Edge's direct words you're referring to. Seems like it's his statement you're taking issue with here.

But maybe this even illustrates his point - that the band, even when they set out to, can't make a small, quick album, they ended up setting up a whole studio and doing the whole works anyway. He's not wrong, aside from Zooropa(and maybe Passengers, which I think was written and recorded in less than one calendar year), they've never made a 'quick' album(excepting of course maybe the first couple albums when they had no money and didn't have a choice but to do it quick).

And while you're right that there are songs that feel constructed (or in my words, "frankensteined"), one shouldn't apply that to the whole album because it's really just SUC and Boots. I don't think it's fair to say that Bono attempting to write in character and tell some different stories from his own means that he lost his way. He was doing that on Zooropa and partially on Pop, and is still doing it on tracks like Sleep Like A Baby, Red Flag Day, and Summer of Love. And coming off a fairly direct rock album that was largely influenced by the death of Bono's father, I think it made sense for the band to start exploring away from home again.

It's fair enough to point out that some songs from SOI/SOE are from other points of view and that he's written songs like that in the past too, but there's just a feeling I get with NLOTH that he was doing it specifically in lieu of having anything to say from an autobiographical point of view.

Plus, Bono said this in a Rolling Stone interview when SOE was released:

I would say halfway through Songs of Innocence, we really started thinking differently about songwriting, being more formal about it. And now these new songs have melodies you can hear across the street, around the corner. When they’re good, you can hear them through the walls.

I think this rings true. There are so many memorable melodies on these albums, and there just weren't on NLOTH. Even on stuff like the title track and Fez and Cedars, which are all great, it's not really about melody as much as it is about sonic atmosphere, painting a picture instead of telling a story.

No Line is a failure not because of the ideas or the band's approach, but because they didn't follow through with it. They didn't let Eno and Lanois finish to the end and brought in Lillywhite for a trio of songs that don't really fit the rest of the album, and seemed to keep some of the local musical influences at bay when they should have let them in a little more to give the album a more distinct sound. I think the material as is makes more than a great EP; it's marred by inconsistency but it's only a few substitutions away from something that could have been a much more substantial statement.

I understand what you're saying, but the notion that there are these much better versions of Unknown Caller or Breathe or Magnificent in the vaults is really not based on much more than beach clips from 2008, and is that really sufficient to go on?

I'm just saying, my feeling is increasingly that they were struggling to come up with enough material for a full album - they evidently weren't happy with Winter, and Boots and SUC apparently didn't come into the picture until much later.

And is there any evidence that there are other tracks - aside from Winter - that would've been on the album in place of Boots/SUC/Crazy Tonight?

With the last two albums, yes, you're right that Iovine's advice was thematically sound, but once again the band changes production horses in mid-stream and compromises what might have been a better-sounding, less opportunistic recording. There's simply no excuse for spending that much time with a respected and innovative producer like Danger Mouse, only to largely abandon his work to remix or re-record material with flavor of the month producers like Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth. It was a desperate, unfortunate move, and the fact that most here (including yourself) seem to prefer the album's final run of tracks where DM's presence is more prominent bears that out.

I think you and I had this conversation when SOI first came out. I really don't mind the Tedder/Epworth stuff on SOI, and I think it's a bit dramatic to say that DM's work was 'largely abandoned'. He produced Crystal Ballroom and Invisible and Lucifer's Hands, and he's also still the first listed producer on The Miracle and EBW, plus the final five tracks. I still think DM's fingerprints are on the album more than any other producer.

And anyway, I'm one who likes the first half of SOI. California is great. EBW is great. The Miracle gets a lot of shit but I love it. It's erroneous to try to suggest these songs are the same thing as Boots or SUC. With Boots and SUC, it sounds like there are no songs there, like various snippets were pasted together in the studio to form something resembling a song. With the aforementioned SOI tracks, whatever you think of the production, the songs are THERE. That was the whole point of the acoustic sessions on the SOI bonus disc. I enjoyed Miracle and California and EBW acoustically just as much as the full versions.

Maybe you disagree, but that's just how I feel about it. The first half of SOI does not compromise the album anywhere near as much as the NLOTH middle 3.

As for SOE, again, I think the songwriting itself for the most part is good (though Get Out is just as "constructed" as the No Line songs you mentioned), but the whole rotating gallery of producers, and all the extra guitars and keyboards contributed by non-band members casts a pall over the whole thing for me. You may like the way it sounds, but it comes with a price, and as a longtime fan I'm not crazy about the band paying it with some of their integrity. When you have a guitarist as eclectic and talented as The Edge, you don't bring in all these ringers to add guitar parts. So while I've gone on record in saying this album has more standout tracks than any album since Pop (there's more of them, for one), I don't care for the track order (this has been a constant issue with the band post-2000), and I'm not sure it holds together as an album as well as it should. I think it has less of a personality than SOI, or even No Line despite the middle 3.

If you're referring to the Haim guitar part in Lights Of Home and the Summer Of Love riff that Tedder apparently wrote, I don't let that bother me too much. Haim and Tedder got credit, right? Does a hip-hop artist lose his integrity when he samples somebody else's work?

I do agree with you about the track order. It's a mess. I can't listen to the official running order. Lately I've been going with something like this...

Blackout
Lights Of Home(String version)
Love Is All We Have Left
Book Of Your Heart
Red Flag Day
Summer Of Love
Landlady
Love Is Bigger
Little Things
13

I don't mind Best Thing but it doesn't really fit anywhere.

So I can't argue with the suggestion they've seemed more inspired and prolific in this stage of their careers, but they can't shake the second-guessing. It's evident in the number of producers, the Invisible fake-out and album delays, and the setlists of the e+i tour. Until the band opts to choose a single producer or producers and actually stick with them, I don't think they're going to legitimately achieve greatness again.

Again, the second-guessing is why I keep saying I'd be ok with it if, and maybe I'm even hoping that, this it for them in terms of studio albums.

But I will repeat that on the whole, I think this pair of albums is an impressive achievement for a band heading for it's 40th year, and I think it's a shame they did such a poor job of promoting them, with regards to the SOI launch and the mostly terrible job of selecting singles, and also inexplicably omitting Little Things from E+I.

 

[cobl04]

A great post namckur, think you've done really well as you usually do in summarising, but it lets the band off too easy. They're idiots, who consistently make extremely poor decisions that totally override all the good stuff that you point out.

NLOTH is miles ahead of the last two albums in my books, because they actually went there and tried some stuff, and a lot of the time it worked: title track, MOS, Fez, Cedars.

I also don't agree that SOI and SOE are these wonderfully tied-together thematic records. There's hints of it, but there's also a lot of shit. And a lot of the songs you mention that tie into the themes are quite shit, so for me at least, I couldn't give a fuck if it's some sort of impressive 'this is how music saved me' and 'I still miss my mum' or 'I love Ali heaps', because those songs, Miracle, Iris, Best Thing, are shithouse.

Again, I really like about six or so songs from SOE, and had I been able to see them on this tour, I'd have been quite happy to hear those six or so songs live, which I think is really impressive and a drastic improvement on SOI. I think the record still pales in comparison to NLOTH because they're all pretty rote tunes though, lacking something special that makes them really stand out as the four I mentioned from NLOTH.

I don't think this is it for U2, in no way. But I don't have a lot of confidence that what comes next is going to be great. I think the only way for them to achieve greatness again would be to drop the fucking pretences. JT30 was the best press the band has had since 2004, and it was amazing. Just give us good setlists with all your great stuff and a few of the (actually good) new songs thrown in - Red Flag Day, Love is Bigger, Little Things, Blackout, Landlady, Troubles, MOS, Fez, Cedars, NLOTH, etc. Write some new songs that just exist because they came to you, not because you're trying to re-manufacture the mood of 2000 and 2004 when the rest of the world has left you behind long ago.

 

[LemonMelon]

The last two albums were by far the worst of their career; Edge in particular has never sounded less inspired as a creative contributor. But I'm going to keep listening to whatever they put out because old habits die hard. Plus, usually there are a few keeper tracks in there no matter how weak the rest is.

And I unsurprisingly agree with Cobbler that NLOTH is leagues ahead of what they've been putting out this decade. They still seemed to have a spark back then, even if the execution wasn't always there. They badly need Eno and Lanois back...someone, anyone who will push them.

 

[cobl04]

Yes, I agree.

 

[david]

https://kroq.radio.com/blogs/bob-diehl/u2-s-bono-we-re-going-away-now

“U2’s Bono: “We’re Going Away Now”

Why 4 words have fans very concerned”

 

[Kieran McConville]

Reading through all the preceding - and quite interesting - comments, one thing leaps out at me. If U2 are collectively out of touch such that they could only reconnect with something 'real' by delving into a strictly autobiographical vein about themselves and where they'd been and where they've come to... what next? (not that stuff like Iris is anything new; it's merely the latest, and by some distance the least affecting song about Bono's mum)

Is that not a one-time thing?

There's no point in doing Songs of Innocence/Experience II.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

https://kroq.radio.com/blogs/bob-diehl/u2-s-bono-we-re-going-away-now

“U2’s Bono: “We’re Going Away Now”

Why 4 words have fans very concerned”

These blogs need to stop quoting shoddy sources

 

[Mack_Again]

https://kroq.radio.com/blogs/bob-diehl/u2-s-bono-we-re-going-away-now

“U2’s Bono: “We’re Going Away Now”

Why 4 words have fans very concerned”

man them Russian hackers are getting crazy

 

[cobl04]

Reading through all the preceding - and quite interesting - comments, one thing leaps out at me. If U2 are collectively out of touch such that they could only reconnect with something 'real' by delving into a strictly autobiographical vein about themselves and where they'd been and where they've come to... what next? (not that stuff like Iris is anything new; it's merely the latest, and by some distance the least affecting song about Bono's mum)

Is that not a one-time thing?

There's no point in doing Songs of Innocence/Experience II.

They need to talk to Nick Cave.

Dude is three years older than Bono and in career-best form.

 

[iron yuppie]

Cue up the comments about how U2 are a democratic unit and Nick Cave is only one guy.

 

[Kieran McConville]

They need to talk to Nick Cave.

Dude is three years older than Bono and in career-best form.

No kidding!

 

[Mack_Again]

They need to talk to Nick Cave.

Dude is three years older than Bono and in career-best form.

didn't we already discuss this shit Cob

 

[kabigon]

didn't we already discuss this shit Cob

When they can make a new album as good as Push the Sky Away or Skeleton Tree then we can stop discussing it.

 

[cobl04]

Cue up the comments about how U2 are a democratic unit and Nick Cave is only one guy.

If anyone tries to say that, they're a complete fucking idiot.

 

[Mack_Again]

U2 is also a one guy and that guy is named Steve Lillywhite

 

[kabigon]

How would you do a set that combines I+E/E+I, JT and acknowledges 30 years since Lovetown, while keeping in 'casual-friendly' songs?

1 Hawkmoon 269 (or God Part II)
2 Desire
3 Gloria (or Electric Co.)
4 New Year's Day
5 All I Want Is You
6 Where the Streets Have No Name
7 With Or Without You
8 Trip Through Your Wires (or In God's Country)
9 One Tree Hill
10 Exit

11 Beautiful Day
12 Vertigo
13 Lights Of Home
14 Cedarwood Road
15 Raised By Wolves
16 Zoo Station
17 The Fly
18 Stay (or Staring At The Sun)
19 Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (or Acrobat)
20 Pride

21 Elevation
22 Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
23 One
24 Bad
25 13 (or 40)

October - 1
War - 1
The Unforgettable Fire - 2
The Joshua Tree - 5
Rattle and Hum - 3
Achtung Baby - 4
Zooropa - 1
All That You Can't Leave Behind - 2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb - 1
Songs of Innocence - 2
Songs of Experience - 3

 

[cobl04]

2019 Australian tour rumours (already!) - U2gigs.com

 

[cobl04]

That question now becomes a bit more pertinent, kabigon. Let's see...

1. The Blackout
2. Lights of Home
3. I Will Follow
4. Gloria
5. Sunday Bloody Sunday
6. New Year's Day
7. Pride
8. A Sort of Homecoming
9. Where the Streets Have No Name
10. Still Haven't Found
11. With or Without You
12. Bullet the Blue Sky
13. Running to Stand Still
14. One Tree Hill
15. Exit
16. Acrobat
17. Best Thing
18. Own Way
19. Invisible
20. Every Breaking Wave

21. Love is Bigger
22. City of Blinding Lights / Beautiful Day
23. Vertigo / Elevation
24. Desire

25. One
26. Bad / 40


Something like that...?

 

[Mack_Again]

come to Japan U2 I'm fucking begging u